I don't have any predictions or endorsements to offer in the House 5B DFL primary. As a resident of 3A, just over the line, I can't vote in this. But this race matters greatly to the whole Iron Range. So here's the dynamic of the race as I see it. I'll begin by saying that I've now met all five candidates in person, talked with them, and find them all to be likable and well-meaning in their own ways. I believe the same is true of the GOP and IP candidates. The question is one of style and agenda.

CARLY MELIN
If she wins it will be because she is a high-energy, youthful candidate who skillfully stuck to a solid if a bit generic modernized Iron Range DFL message. She has used current campaign techniques focused on direct mail and targeted calling. I just heard this evening that Melin's campaign door knocked more than 200 targeted homes throughout the district today, "from Floodwood to Fredenburg, Twig to Cotton," as part of their 24-hour countdown. After a cocoa break, the team is hitting Hibbing and Chisholm tonight. Melin earned early support from well-connected Range DFLers, labor unions and the grassroots DFL endorsement this past Saturday. 

If Melin loses this race it will be because of the perception that she was too young and too tied to Range power brokers and lobbyists, probably best manifested in the 11th hour hit from Hibbing Daily Tribune editor/publisher Wanda Moeller. (The title, "Who's in your wallet?" indicates the tone). Now, Moeller is a Republican (and technically my boss) so DFLers could dismiss her accusation that Melin was "in the wallet" of lobbyists. However, readers here know my longstanding frustration over the influence of lobbyists in Range politics. Melin has told me she resents implications that she is taking orders from anyone who endorsed her, that she thinks and acts on her own. I am convinced, unless demonstrated otherwise, that she is telling the truth. The question: will enough voters be convinced? The timing of Moeller's Sunday editorial and the lack of a Monday edition did not allow much of a formal response. That's not fair, but this is politics.

SHELLEY ROBINSON
If she wins it will be because of her widespread name recognition as a community leader in Hibbing and Chisholm and her attraction of center-right independents to the DFL primary from her years as chamber of commerce board president. She has a great amount of experience in budgeting, health care policy and IRRRB policy. A voter concerned with experience first and foremost is probably going to lean toward Robinson. Her team has also been working the cold streets this week, knocking doors and meeting with voters.

If she loses it will be because she seems to have alarmed progressives and labor, two key portions of the DFL base, who believe that she is really just a Republican running as a DFLer out of convenience. Robinson has been involved with DFL campaigns in the past, but is conservative on some business and social issues. Though big name lobbyists have not flocked to Robinson's aid, as they have Melin's, Robinson has enjoyed the support of powerful members of the district's business community. Her campaign has stuck to a fairly traditional approach, including some quality TV and radio ads, but it remains to be seen whether that equals votes in a strange election like this one. I was almost ready to believe this race was going to be a great experiment featuring a generational difference in Range campaign styles, but the water is too muddy now. It's a scrum. Robinson has as good a shot as Melin or anyone else, but the results will be complex.

RAY PIERCE
If he wins it will be because the previous two names split a big chunk of the DFL voting bloc and because his message, which has pulsed with authenticity, finally got to voters. Pierce has run on a consistent theme of being the candidate for working families, who knows what it's like living pay check to pay check, who values the labor traditions of the Range. He has never gotten the right amount of credit for his ability on the stump. Had this been a longer primary I'd upgrade his chances even more, but Melin and Robinson really absorbed a lot of the oxygen quickly. Pierce performed well at the HCC Student Senate forum and is well known in the Hibbing area. He is the dark horse to watch on the outside.

JEFF KLETSCHER
If he wins it will be because he found more votes in the non-Hibbing and non-Chisholm portion of this massive district than previously believed possible. Those voters do exist, but the prospect of getting several hundred rural residents out to their township halls on such short notice is somewhat dim. Kletscher may also catch fire if experience-first voters find him preferable to Robinson. He also performed reasonably well at the debate. Kletscher is another candidate, a little like Pierce, who would have been positioned better in a longer campaign period in which he could campaign in the big towns where he is less known. Nevertheless, Kletscher is a wild card -- the Huey Long in this equation -- because a lot of people in the towns don't know his appeal in the country. If this boils down to a tight four-way race he's got a shot.

JOHN SPANISH
If he wins this race you won't be able to find a bottle of whiskey in District 5B. They'll all be sold out, and probably empty by the time you realize it. If he loses, he'll run again. The only way to stop him from running is to elect him one more time. This is something to consider.

The one thing this race has been for John Spanish is something of a swan song as a new generation of Range political activists have gotten to meet a man they've only heard about in local legend. He even got a fawning mention over at the MN Progressive Project. Spanish is a kind man who, like the others, means well in his own way.

On Tuesday, voters go to the polls to answer the lingering questions posed by this primary. This will kick off the next stage of this discussion, the Feb. 15 general election featuring one of these DFLers, Republican Paul Jacobson and IP candidate Cynthia Kafut Hagen. This is possibly the most important Iron Range election sequence of the decade for how it will shape future open seats in the next 2-6 years. I'll be watching with interest and sharing information with you as it becomes available.

Pictured at right is what a January special election primary looks like on the Iron Range. Signs for two of the DFL candidates for House 5B perch atop a huge snow bank, just as they do in most of the snow banks around Hibbing. Republican Paul Jacobson, who first ran just last November, also has several signs out.

In fact, the short election period has encouraged some overzealous campaign volunteers to place signs in places where they'd certainly be removed by the cities or highway department during the fall. The extreme cold and deep snow act as protection. It's just not worth going out there to remove, deface or otherwise mess with these signs. And anyway, it will all be over soon.

Here at MinnesotaBrown I've attempted to provide deep, honest coverage of this 5B election. No I am not unbiased, but I hope my opinions and experiences informed my writing instead of debauching it. My coverage of this story started with the announcement of Tony Sertich as the new commissioner of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation (IRRRB). Candidates began to file for the special election, culminating with the the news that seven people were seeking the office, five DFLers, a Republican and an Independent.

The five DFLers all participated in my request to share commentaries here at the blog:

Jeff Kletscher, Mayor of Floodwood

Ray Pierce, union millwright and local country music personality

Carly Melin, Hibbing attorney

Shelley Robinson, Range Center director and IRRRB citizen member

John Spanish, former legislator, retired miner and WWII veteran

After Tuesday, one of these DFLers will advance to face Jacobson and Cynthia Kafut Hagen, the IP candidate, in the Feb. 15 general election. Though 5B is a heavily DFL district, the unique nature of this election will reward the most enthusiastic candidate and his or her supporters, quite possibly regardless of party. Thus MinnesotaBrown special coverage will continue as the future of the Iron Range unfolds in fascinating fashion. Stay tuned through the evening for rolling coverage from MinnesotaBrown news headquarters in Balsam Township as my team of informants report from bar halls in the city.

Later tonight I'll post some final analysis of the race, including the path to victory for each of the candidates.

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

The cold we know
By Aaron J. Brown

Well, look at the bright side. It is warmer here than it is in space, for instance, or in some of the experimental chambers found in your high end chemical laboratories. The weather here is warmer than both the Arctic and the Antarctic. A penguin would vacation here and say to his monogamous life partner, “you know, this is nice but I couldn’t live here.” And she would say, “I could,” and years later when he was eaten by a lion seal, she would.

The January cold snap is nothing new to longtime denizens of northern Minnesota.  In fact, this is all too real for us here on the Iron Range where there are even more heavy metal objects to be touched, moved or lifted at 15 below. Yes, your tongue, and more, will stick to a flag pole in the cold. This was established long ago.

Nevertheless the two weeks of subzero temperatures seen just recently still surprises us at first. Like childbirth (I’m told!), something in the human brain helps forget the pain aching through skin as we attempt to buckle the children into their frigid car seats. After a few days, however, like muscle memory, we no longer remark on the temperature except when records are broken. Perhaps we might ask, “Is it OK to leave this Diet Coke in the car while we eat dinner, or will it explode?” The question merely becomes one of logistics.

Cold like this becomes a reminder of what tens of thousands of years of human life established as the parameters of our survival. If it really was “too cold” there wouldn’t be any gas stations or fast food restaurants in this town, or a town for that matter. Once this reminder is fully realized there is no need to talk about it anymore. We must and then we must not. Wait for the change. It will come.

Until then, you know the sights and sounds of January cold. The steam lifting off the taconite plants and power stations billow wider, as though that’s where clouds come from. School buses run hard, like hungry dinosaurs with pneumonia. Family cars and vans sound like biplanes. We must wear scarves and goggles to run them comfortably, constantly searching the skies for the Red Baron. The side streets of our towns are choked with hard pack snow, as though an army of cement trucks randomly spewed their contents as part of a civil demonstration. And the bite, in our lungs and fingertips: a taste of death, but only a taste.

I tempt fate with these comments, as I’m certain the weather has changed from the time I wrote and submitted this piece to the time it is committed to ink. I am reminded of a book I am reading about early U.S. history, how the War of 1812 could have been prevented if Americans had received the overseas letter offering British concessions before declaring war. I have declared war on cold, and it is too late to stand down now.

I wear the uniform of a cold warrior. When you surrender your claim on fashion and physical attractiveness a world of options become available. Slippers prevent the touch of melting snow by the door on your warm socks. Those flannel pants grandma gave you at Christmas suddenly become more valuable than an iPod. I’ve been wearing my bath robe the way NFL quarterbacks wear those big coats that fit over shoulder pads on the sidelines.

No, it is not pretty. But it is fairly common. And we are just days away from the start of the thaw. Just the start, mind you, but sometimes that is enough.
Aaron J. Brown is a writer and community college instructor from the Iron Range. Read more at his blog MinnesotaBrown.com or in his book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

The annual Winter Frolic Jubilee kicks off this weekend in the Iron Range city of Hibbing. It's loads of typical frozen small town fun. You can read about it at the Hibbing Daily Tribune, in a story that includes this nugget:

This year, local author Aaron Brown will pen the return of private detective Sal Winter as the voice of the treasure hunt clues.

That's right. I hid the Hibbing Winter Frolic Medallion. The clues will run daily in the Hibbing Daily Tribune this week until someone locates the translucent disc on public land and claims the $1,000. I do not have and will never see the money, but as a writer I am comfortable with that. For I have never known such raw, naked power in my entire life as I have from my participation in this enterprise, which started with the introduction of Sal Winter last year. I shall feast on this feeling. Feast, I say.

I'll share the entire serialized story after the Tribune has run the clues next weekend. If you're a medallion hunter, buy your Winter Frolic button, bring your snow shovel and pick up a copy of the Sunday paper. I have written the clues in a way that will allow me to park my car and watch you dig for hours, for my amusement, and for little other reason.

Or did I?

Carly Melin won the DFL endorsement in the House 5B special election primary at a convention held today in Hibbing. The primary will be held this upcoming Tuesday and the winner advances to the Feb. 15 general election against Republican Paul Jacobson and Independent Cynthia Kafut Hagen.

Since the dailies on the Iron Range went behind an online pay wall last year I've not read my region's largest paper, the Mesabi Daily News, as often as I once did. I live on the other side of the Range where I subscribe to the Hibbing and Grand Rapids papers. It is telling, however, that the MDN, by way of editor/co-publisher Bill Hanna, leaves the paper's unsigned editorials outside the pay wall, the only part of this valuable product afforded such status. It is as though having people read these editorials is more important to someone at the paper than the vast profits no doubt secured by the web strategy of the multinational corporation that owns this group. To give away such fine content must surely pain the bean counters, but the magnanimous gesture endures.

On Jan. 6, I wrote a commentary for Minnesota Public Radio entitled "Iron Range needs answers more nuanced than jobs, jobs, jobs." Within, I describe a common theme in my writing, that Rudy Perpich's famous description of the Range's needs, "jobs, jobs, jobs," is so often bastardized to justify haphazard, expensive and often unsuccessful economic development efforts when our problems stem from deeper economic and demographic concerns. You know, nuance.

Well, tucked away in an otherwise benign Jan. 15 MDN editorial congratulating Tony Sertich on his appointment as commissioner of the IRRRB is this turn of phrase:

The “jobs, jobs, jobs” mantra for the [Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation] agency must never be replaced by a more “nuanced” approach to economic development. It needs to be jobs, jobs, jobs and then more jobs.

Nuance as an abstract concept is not normally a target of MDN scorn, so I have to assume this goes back to the philosophical differences William and I have developed and the timing of my essay.

What am I supposed to say here? More nuance? Nuance, nuance, nuance!

I've got to say, the opposite of jobs is not nuance. The opposite of jobs is what we've had on the Iron Range since I was a child and Bill Hanna first blustered into town. The opposite of jobs is desperation and compromised logic. The opposite of jobs is humiliation at the hands of fast-talking developers. The opposite of jobs is the disappointment of educated professionals seeking a viable, self-sustaining economy that can endure fluctuations in copper or steel prices. The opposite of jobs is driving young people away.

Yelling "jobs, jobs, jobs and more jobs" is no solution. The solution will require additional nouns and verbs, and a couple thousand new Iron Range residents who aren't retired. Bellowing the same trite nonsense serves only to embarrass those trying to engage people in this state in a serious, 21st century discussion about the great potential of the Iron Range. We'll get jobs, jobs, jobs when we use our brains, brains, brains.

In 1969, writer Toby Thompson drove from New York to Hibbing, Minnesota, to learn about Bob Dylan's hometown for the Village Voice. These articles went on to become the landmark "Dylan book" of that era, "Positively Main Street." This article, describing the world of the Iron Range in 1969, is a fun read regardless of your opinion of Dylan or the Iron Range. I wrote a post and column last summer entitled "Iron Range 1969" that looks at the region of that time from a non-Dylan perspective.

Thompson was a speaker at Dylan Days 2008. Dylan Days 2011 is approaching.

I've been talking lots and lots and lots of 5B politics around here. Sorry about that. It will all be over soon. If you're looking for a respite, tune in to "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE, the Saturday morning call-in and music show sharing the voices of northern Minnesota. The show's topic this week is community media as Northern Community Radio celebrates the impending start-up of KBXE, its new Bemidji station. It will be a fun talk about the ways radio and the media affect small towns and rural places. My regular contribution is short, involves a meaningful story and is devoid of politics. Yay! And this is a great, surprising show no matter what the topic.

Tune in from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday morning on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming live all over the world at www.kaxe.org.

The GOP-controlled Senate committees on commerce and the environment will hold a 2 p.m. hearing today at Hibbing Community College to talk about jobs, the economy and environmental permitting, a hot topic in local politics these days. Heard a rumor Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN8) might be in town. Checking on that.

UPDATE: No Cravaack, but HUGE crowd assembled to watch hearing. This isn't the only mining-related conversation on the Range, but it sure is the fanciest.

Kathryn Kohlhase of the Hibbing Daily Tribune covered Wednesday's House 5B DFL Primary Forum sponsored by HCC Student Senate. Today she has a story detailing the candidates' answers to the questions. She also posted a YouTube video containing snippets from each candidate's closing statement. It's just a distillation of 90 minutes of debate and discussion, but you might find it interesting.



Again, the HCC Student Senate will host a forum at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 9 featuring the winner of the DFL primary, Republican Paul Jacobson and Independence Party candidate Cynthia Kafut Hagen. The format will be very similar to this one. I advise senate as part of my job at the college.

MinnesotaBrown offered a 600-word guest post to all the candidates in the House District 5B Special Election. The final entry in the series runs today with John Spanish. (Note: Mr. Spanish hand wrote a statement for the Hibbing Daily Tribune which graciously shared the resulting item with permission).

HIBBING — A former state legislator has joined the race for Minnesota House District 5B.

John J. Spanish, of Hibbing, filed for the post Jan. 18 and formally announced his candidacy Monday. He served in the state House District 63 seat from 1969 to 1970 and in the District 5B seat from 1973 to 1978.

Spanish is running for the House seat vacated by Tony Sertich earlier this month. The former legislator, running on the Independence Party ticket, lost to Sertich in 2004 and lost as a DLFer in 2000.

This winter Spanish will vie for the DFL spot on the ballot in the Feb. 1 Primary Election.

“During my travels in the area, I found the response overwhelming to encouraging,” he said of his campaign.

Spanish said if elected he will draw on his eight years of legislative experience.

As a representative, Spanish served as vice chair of the Higher Education Committee, and on the committees for Health and Welfare; Crime Prevention and Correction; Commerce and Economic Development; and General Legislation and Veterans Affairs, he said.

Spanish said if elected he will ask to serve on the same committees.

While in the legislature, Spanish also worked to promote completion of the Highway 169 Cross Iron Range Expressway, he said.

Spanish worked to procure funding and establish a budget system for its completion and worked to establish white driving lines, which makes driving safer, he said.

“The Iron Range Expressway four-lane highway when completed, will make driving safer during adverse weather conditions,” he said.

Spanish is a World War II combat veteran, who served in all theaters of war, he said. He is also a retired machinist and diesel mechanic who worked for mines in Hibbing, Chisholm and Mountain Iron.

Spanish served as president of Local 1663 in the Hibbing and Chisholm districts and was a member of USWA Local 1938 Minntac at Mountain Iron.

As a legislator, Spanish said he would work with the taconite industry “to maintain good, high-paying jobs.” He’d also work with other employers to “safeguard, retain and keep taconite funding benefits on the Iron Range,” he said.

Spanish supports health care, education, the Clean Air Act and environmental protections for drinking water and the state’s lakes and streams. He is a pro-life candidate.

Spanish was born and raised in Hibbing and is a lifelong resident of the community.

“If elected I propose to work with other members of the legislature for the common good of all,” he said.

Other DFL candidates include Jeff Kletscher, Carly Melin, Ray Pierce Jr. and Shelley Robinson. The Feb. 1 DFL primary winner will face Republican Paul Jacobson and IP candidate Cynthia Kafut Hagen in the Feb. 15 general election.

A few more interesting notes on 5B to pass along:

The DFL will hold an endorsing convention at the former HCC/Range Tech central campus at 9:30 a.m. Saturday. None of the candidates will be able to abide by the endorsement, on account of the impending primary on Tuesday, Feb. 1, but local DFL leaders have apparently decided there is value in screening the candidates on issues. Delegates from the last county unit convention in 2010 will be eligible to participate.

Ray Pierce Jr. won a key endorsement:

Members of USW Local 2660 voted today to Endorse Ray Pierce Jr. as the successor to outgoing Representative Tony Sertich’s seat in the House of Representatives District 5B. Ray has made working families and labor the cornerstone of his campaign.

Keewatin is not in District 5B but the pellet plant is actually located over the line in St. Louis County (5B) and many of the workers live in 5B. This is the first entry of any Steelworkers local into the race. The Steelworkers and AFL-CIO have not weighed in on the race at the district level.

As mentioned before, Carly Melin has won backing from Education Minnesota. She's also won support from AFSCME Councils 5 and 65. That makes Melin and Pierce the only two candidates with union backing at this time. Union endorsements won't necessarily swing the election, but labor is strong on the Range and endorsements do provide some footholds in a short DFL primary campaign like this one.

I posted a short item on Wednesday's forum earlier Thursday.

One of five DFL candidates for the District 5B House of Representatives special election will advance from the Feb. 1 primary to the Feb. 15 general election. A credible Republican opponent who's run before, Paul Jacobson, and Cynthia Kafut Hagen, a former DFLer turned Independence Party candidate, await the Democrat. For all the drama of the primary, and there is ample excitement, the general promises another interesting twist in the quest for this quintessential Iron Range seat.

Jeff Kletscher, Ray Pierce, Carly Melin, Shelley Robinson and John Spanish (his candidate commentary runs Friday) are a curious lot, each of them representing some literary quality of DFL politics on the Iron Range. I would describe it as a stronger field than the five who stepped forward in 2000 when Tony Sertich was first elected.

The Hibbing Community College Student Senate, of which I am faculty co-advisor, sponsored a forum for the primary candidates on Wednesday. The students did a fine job of planning the questions and logistics and will do the same on Feb. 9 for a general election forum.

The event was covered by several media outlets. A reporter from the Hibbing Daily Tribune was there but apparently the paper is holding her story for another time. Fox 21 and WDIO both did basic stories as did Range 11 (Northland's Newscenter) whose story is embedded below.





Because of my involvement in the organization of the forum, I vowed not to parse the results into winners and losers. To be honest, I don't think there was an outright winner anyway. What we saw was a candidate buffet and different kinds of Iron Range DFL voters would see different reasons to support the candidate of their choice. This election will be determined wholly by the question of which voters choose to vote in the primary, and how many of them go on to unify for the general. District 5B is a DFL stronghold, but it's been a strange time on the Iron Range and there has been some contention and factionalism in the DFL.

I will take my speech instructor approach and find one nice thing to say about each candidate:

John Spanish: Some good lines, determined. If the state had listened to him in the 1970s, the Metrodome would have been made of steel and never fallen down.

Shelley Robinson: Her best moments in the forum came when she described the actual process of administrating a budget and making hard choices. She was very strong and very passionate there. Also, she did a good job of describing her diverse community experience in a short amount of time.

Carly Melin: Fiercely focused on jobs, she showed lot of message discipline and had prepared a few notable statistics that she used well. Announcing her Education Minnesota endorsement during the education question was a nice touch. Highly energetic.

Jeff Kletscher: He's underrated in this race and might have the deepest political and government resume of the group. Well spoken and very knowledgeable about the way state and local governments interact to provide actual public services. Also, he made the best attempt of any candidate to be optimistic about the future.

Ray Pierce Jr.: Another candidate who hasn't been given a lot of consideration by the political class, but one who flashed a great homespun Iron Range message. Earnest, informed and direct he also defies the conventional wisdom of this race.

Robinson and Melin have rightly been called the front runners so far. These two candidates each performed well in their own way at the forum. Nevertheless, for me the event showed that Pierce and Kletscher also have appeal in sectors of the 5B voter population that could create some surprises. I offer no prediction or endorsement and encourage all the readers of this blog to consider the candidates in both this primary and the general and make an informed choice. Someone I know put it best, "OK, Iron Range, what do you want?" 

The forum was recorded by Hibbing Public Access Television and will air over the weekend on the government channel in Hibbing. If I can find a way to share it here over the weekend I will. I'll try to have my act together for some digital recording of the general election debate in a couple weeks.

Melin and Robinson have a host of events slated for the weekend on their websites. I'm also tracking the possibility of a DFL endorsement being issued on Saturday, something that's been in the works but yet to be confirmed. Any major announcements by the candidates over the weekend will be shared as I am able.

A new exhibit opens this weekend at the Minnesota Discovery Center (formerly Ironworld) in Chisholm. My Iron Range history hero Pam Brunfelt opens the exhibit Saturday.

Journey Stories exhibit to open at Minnesota Discovery Center

Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm will host the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street exhibit Journey Stories January 29 through March 12, 2011. Journey Stories focuses on tales of journeys across the US, from those of American Indians to new American citizens. On January 29, regional historian Pam Brunfelt will help open the exhibit with a presentation about immigrants with a special emphasis on women’s experiences. She will show the third segment of the film “Iron Range: Building America,” The People, and discuss women’s contributions to the Range.  Brunfelt’s presentation begins at 2 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for students age 7 to 17 and free to children age 6 and under, and free to Minnesota Discovery Center members. Call 800-372-6437 for more information.

MinnesotaBrown offered a 600-word guest post to all the candidates in the House District 5B Special Election. The fourth in the series runs today with Shelley Robinson .

As a DFL candidate for Minnesota House District 5B, I want to introduce myself and share my perspective on the upcoming legislative session. My name is Shelley Robinson. I am an advocate for people with disabilities, a teacher, a union member (IFO), a community volunteer, a wife, a mom and a proud Iron Ranger.

It has been said that our number one export is our young people. That must stop. One of my top priorities will be to help bring jobs back to the Iron Range. My tenure as member of the IRRRB has given me valuable experience in economic development. It has taught me that creating jobs does not always mean trying to bring in a new industry that creates 50 jobs (though that often plays an important role and will with companies like Polymet).  Sometimes, it means expanding the capacity of already existing business to create 100 jobs right here, right now.  I believe we need to have a strong business base in order to have job growth and I believe that unions only strengthen that base.  IRRRB Commissioner Tony Sertich has emphasized the need for cooperation between business and labor in order to grow our Range economy. I strongly agree and have a history of working with both the chamber of commerce and organized labor in order to foster such cooperation.  I am the director of a large nonprofit organization that employees over 140 United Steelworker Union members. Together, we have been presented with awards from Congressman James Oberstar and the Iron Ranger Labor/Management Association for excellent cooperation between business and labor.

A major issue confronting Minnesota, as well as the rest of the nation, is health care.   Health care is a basic human right, not a privilege. The Steelworkers fought long and hard to have healthcare included in their contracts and finally succeeded in their fight with the NLRB in 1952. I will continue that fight, to ensure that every Minnesotan has access to quality, affordable health care.

Minnesota is currently facing a 6 billion dollar budget deficit. The Republican-controlled legislature has made it clear that the health and human services budget is the first item on the chopping block. Senior citizens, people with disabilities, and the economically disadvantaged are in danger of losing their health care, housing, and support services. We cannot let this happen. This 'slash and burn' approach may look good to the public, but its effects are devastating…For example, those who have their health care programs cut have no alternative but to receive basic care in the most expensive way - in the emergency room - resulting in higher premium costs for everyone. This is a “lose-lose” situation for all involved; it hurts the economy and it hurts our workers.  After 20 years in the health and human services field, I have the expertise to ensure that this does not come about.  Now more than ever, it is critical for the legislature to make good policy decisions. Cutting services to our most vulnerable citizens in order to solve Minnesota's budget crisis is simply unacceptable.

My years of community service have taught me the value of "caring for my neighbor."  Whether it is serving on the United Way of Northeastern Minnesota, an economic development response team, the Chisholm Community Foundation, or a coat drive at my church - when people of the Iron Range have asked for help, I have always done my best to meet their needs. I will continue to do so in the legislature.   I am humbled to have the support of fellow residents of district 5B, Mayor Mike Jugovich of Chisholm and the venerable Veda Ponikvar.  I ask for your support as well. Together we can work to re-vitalize the Iron Range and show the rest of Minnesota what a wonderful place it is to live, work and play.

Other DFL candidates include Jeff Kletscher, Carly Melin, Ray Pierce Jr. and John Spanish. The Feb. 1 DFL primary winner will face Republican Paul Jacobson and IP candidate Cynthia Kafut Hagen in the Feb. 15 general election.

MinnesotaBrown offered a 600-word guest post to all the candidates in the House District 5B Special Election. The third in the series runs today with Carly Melin.

I am honored to have the privilege of asking for your vote for state representative next Tuesday, February 1.  

We have a long tradition of great public officeholders in Northern Minnesota.  I want to continue that tradition of working for the best educational system for our children and jobs for our neighbors.  With a good education, you can get a good job and with employment a lot of problems go away.

I am a Democrat.  I was raised as a Democrat and learned the importance of lending a hand to a fellow citizen and working for the best in our communities.  Running for public office shouldn’t be about personal advancement—it should be about contributing skills, talent, and hard work to make for a better Minnesota.  I’ve been lucky in my life to have a supportive family and a great public education.  I worked my way through law school and found a job.  Being a Democrat is making sure others have similar opportunities to find success in life.  I am a Democrat.

I am also humbled by the support I’ve earned from major organizations and individuals.  I’m proud that Labor has endorsed me--AFSCME Council 5 and AFSCME Council 65.  Former Senators Ron Dicklich and Jerry Janezich are supporting me, along with the President of the National Association of Township Officers Jim Fisher from Zim, Hibbing City Clerk Pat Garrity, Leah Stauber from Canyon, Jerry Davidson from Floodwood, and many others. I’ve also been endorsed by Minnesota’s Women Winning for my commitment to progressive policies.

Our leading generation of senior citizens deserves the best health care, good housing options, and access to services.  It is their time to enjoy retirement, not to endure painful budget cuts to services rural seniors deserve.  I will be an advocate for senior citizens in the Minnesota Legislature.

I will passionately support Polymet Mining, Essar Steel, and other new innovations in mining and natural resources to grow our economy while protecting our local environment. Support for renewable energy will be a cornerstone of my legislative work.  That means incentives for solar, wind, and biomass energy because it is proven that it means jobs for our region.

And now, Republicans want to cut unemployment benefits, limit workers’ rights to organize, and stop investments in infrastructure for our communities.  I’ll stand up for all workers, protect their union rights to organize, and support extension of unemployment benefits until the economy improves.  Specifically, I will support Governor Dayton’s bonding proposals to bring jobs to the rural economy through infrastructure investments in schools and cities while providing for new construction jobs.  I’ll work every day to diversify our economy.

You can read more of my positions on the issues on my web site: www.melinfor5b.org.  You will find that I support mining and natural resource jobs, I’ll stand by hunting and fishing rights while promoting recreation, make sure our rural schools get a fair shake, seek a balance and fair approach to the budget, protect services to senior citizens, and fight against unfair property tax hikes.

Most importantly, you have my commitment to serve the public with integrity, passion, and compassion.

I wish I could meet each and every resident of District 5b and personally ask for your vote.  In such a short, two week special election campaign that is just not possible.  So thank you for researching the issues, giving me a fair hearing, and making an informed choice.

I’m Carly Melin.  Locally raised, publicly educated, and ready to work hard for you and the advancement of our schools and communities.  Please consider voting for me on Tuesday, February 1.

Sincerely,

Carly Melin

Other DFL candidates include Jeff Kletscher, Ray Pierce Jr., Shelley Robinson and John Spanish. The Feb. 1 DFL primary winner will face Republican Paul Jacobson and IP candidate Cynthia Kafut Hagen in the Feb. 15 general election.

By now you're well aware of my coverage of the House 5B special election. As part of my day job at Hibbing Community College I am faculty co-advisor to Student Senate. The students are holding a forum for the DFL Primary candidates and another one later for the general election candidates. Here is the press release:

Hibbing Community College will be hosting a HCC Student Senate DFL Primary Forum on Wednesday, January 26, at 2:00 p.m. in HCC’s room L-10.

The event will be a 90-minute forum featuring six to eight questions. The moderator will be HCC Student Senate President Tabatha Jauhola. All five DFL candidates for House District 5B have been invited. A separate forum will be held at a later date for the general election featuring the DFL primary winner and the GOP and IP nominees.

HCC Student Senate members will be writing the questions, so expect some talk about higher education and jobs. However, it will be a wide-ranging forum including other issues relevant to House District 5B. This will quite likely be the only forum held before the primary; we hope you can attend. 

Because of my involvement in the organization of this forum on Wednesday I won't be offering any commentary on its outcome. The winners are the people of 5B and the losers are enemies of democracy. I will, however, seek to find a way to share a recording of the event with you here at the blog. If you have an opportunity to attend you have your best chance to see all the candidates at the same time and compare their policy proposals and political styles.

MinnesotaBrown offered a 600-word guest post to all the candidates in the House District 5B Special Election. The second in the series runs today with Ray Pierce Jr.

I am a lifelong resident of Hibbing MN.  I graduated from Hibbing High School and attended classes in Business Management at HCC.  I have grown up on Iron Range values and continue to live and raise my family here.  I work at ArcelorMittal Minorca mine in Virginia as a Millwright.  I have been an active voice for workers rights in Washington D.C. and St. Paul over the past two years.  I have entertained the Iron Range with my music.  I coach our kids in wrestling, attend the Blessed Sacrament Church and am an active member of our community.  I am married to Anna and have three sons, all involved in various sports and activities on the range.  I know the struggles working families face.  I understand what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck because I do it everyday. 

My message is clear.  We need to balance the budget FAIRLY not SQUARELY on the backs of our working families.  I support Mark Dayton’s plan to increase revenue by raising taxes to an equitable level on the wealthiest Minnesotans.

We need to create jobs.  I support a bonding bill to continue work on our infrastructure putting hundreds of trade workers back to work.  I support the Essar Steel project, the Keetac line expansion project, and Polymet.  We need to be mindful of our environment for our future generations, and our policies are effective, they just need to be streamlined to promote economic development not discourage it.

I stand behind workers rights to form unions and bargain collectively for wages and benefits.  I support P.L.A.s when local tax dollars are used for Iron Range Projects. 

I feel tax cuts and tax loopholes for big corporations do little to grow the economy or create jobs.  Can we trust a company will expand or employ with this extra revenue or will it be given out as bonuses or CEO pay raises.  Most businesses look at three important things when they decide to locate in a community.  1.  A good education system for their children and for future employees.  2.  A high quality of life in which to raise their families.  3.  A market with consumers who can afford their products.

I feel directing our attention to the workforce by allowing them to form unions and by legislating laws that protect workers safety we can accomplish all three of the above mentioned things.  Unions help increase wages and benefits not just for union employees but for the entire area, creating a higher standard of living with a larger tax base. 

I feel our seniors deserve a dignified retirement and help that allows them to remain in their homes as long as they can, and a system for assisted living and nursing home care that will not drain their life savings. 

I applaud Governor Dayton’s actions when he signed the executive order implementing Minnesotans early Medicaid enrollment bringing 95,000 Minnesotans onto health coverage and saving an estimated 20,000 health care jobs.  

I am not a candidate backed by big business or high profile people, but one supported by my peers, friends and neighbors.  I understand our community issues because I live and work here.  Anyone who knows me, knows that I will work hard representing District 5B, from Hibbing to Cotton, to Fredenburg and Meadowlands and everywhere in between.  I built my house here because I love this community and this will always be my home. 

Other DFL candidates include Jeff Kletscher, Carly Melin, Shelley Robinson and John Spanish. The Feb. 1 DFL primary winner will face Republican Paul Jacobson and IP candidate Cynthia Kafut Hagen in the Feb. 15 general election.

Carly Melin won the first big union endorsements in the House 5B Special Election DFL primary. Her campaign released this today:

DFL candidate Carly Melin, vying for state representative, district 5B, wins the first major union endorsement in the election.  AFSCME Council 5 & AFSCME Council 65 endorsed Carly Melin because of her strong stands in support of workers.

Preble stated “We have a unique opportunity to support someone who shows a great understanding of the needs of the working people. She was raised in a union family and will fight for the working people of Minnesota. AFCSME Council 65 is proud to support DFLer Carly Melin. She thanked us for our support; we should be thanking her for being willing to run for public office.”

Melin added “We need to protect working people, services to seniors, and pensions for those who worked so hard to earn them. I am ready to do that. There is a Republican assault on unemployment benefits, training, and the rights to organize. The stakes are high and I am glad to have the working people behind me. I am proud to be the only labor endorsed candidate in the race.”

Dennis Frazier said, “I have worked with Carly’s mom for twenty five years. I have known Carly’s father, who served in the armed forces and as a public servant teaching at Hibbing Community and Technical College for twenty seven years. She was raised in a good union family and her parents taught her the importance of public service. She is one of us. Carly currently works as a public servant herself for the state. Her youth and energy will prove vital down at the capitol and for our communities.”

Steve Preble is currently the President of AFSCME Council 65.  Dennis Frazier is currently the Vice President of AFSCME Council 5’s local 66. Dennis lives in 5B.

The press release also touted the support of former state senators Ron Dicklich and Jerry Janezich, whose support had already been announced last week.

MinnesotaBrown offered a 600-word guest post to all the candidates in the House District 5B Special Election. The first in the series runs today with Floodwood Mayor Jeff Kletscher.

Thank you for the opportunity to share a few words with you.  I have been a resident of Floodwood since August 1989, when I came to Floodwood to be a mathematics and computer teacher at Floodwood School.  Northern Minnesota quickly become home and I become an active member of the Floodwood Community.  In January of 1993, I began my involvement with local government and served on the City Council for 10 years.  In 2003, I become the Mayor of Floodwood and was recently re-elected to my 5th term in November. 

My involvement in local government has provided me with the opportunity to represent the residents of Floodwood and the Floodwood Area at the County and State levels of government.  I had the honor of serving on the St. Louis County Community Development Block Grant Advisory Committee for 6 years and am currently representing the southern part of St. Louis County on the AEOA Board of Directors. (I also currently serve on the AEOA Executive Committee.)

My trips to the State Capital began immediately after my election to the Floodwood City Council.  Working with other Floodwood elected officials and our elected state officials in St. Paul we had success.  Success lead to additional trips to St. Paul to fight for the Floodwood Area, and that lead to even more success.  My presence at the Capital was noticed and lead to my being called to testify on bills that affected not only Floodwood but other small cities across Minnesota.  Press conferences soon become a part of my call to duty at the Capital -- the story I shared was different and I was not among those familiar press conference faces. I successfully shared real stories on what small cities face, and helped protect Local Government Aid (LGA) for the smallest cities in our State.  Soon the press corps sought me out; I had a solid background and a good story to tell -- I wasn't the same old talking face so often seen at the capital. 

In June 2010, I was elected to be President of the Minnesota Association of Small Cities, a voluntary membership organization which lobbies for cities of 5000 or under.  Leadership is not always easy, especially during tough times, but I am enjoying the challenge. 

If elected to serve District 5B, I promise to work hard for the Citizens of the District.  Times are tough in our homes, our communities, our county, our state and our Nation; but we will emerge from these tough times as stronger individuals, communities, counties, states, and a stronger America.  We need to make it through these tough times - we are hurting and will continue to hurt for period of time, but in the end it will get better.  Jobs will return, salary freezes and cuts will be replaced with raises.  Challenges will be replaced with opportunities -- I promise to work through the challenges with an eye on the opportunities that lurk in the future. 

We must all work together to elect the best person to represent District 5B in St. Paul.  The person elected will need to fight hard and overcome numerous challenges and help lead us all to a more positive future.  I have 18 years of leadership experience and ask for your vote of support and confidence on February 1st.

Thank You,
Jeff Kletscher
District 5B DFL Candidate

Other DFL candidates include Carly Melin, Ray Pierce, Jr., Shelley Robinson and John Spanish. The Feb. 1 DFL primary winner will face Republican Paul Jacobson and IP candidate Cynthia Kafut Hagen in the Feb. 15 general election.

I received some reports from boots on the ground in the House 5B DFL primary campaigns this weekend. And when I say boots on the ground, I mean big, honking clod-hopper boots on the cold, hard ground. On a pair of days in which the temperature barely reached zero here on the Iron Range, candidates and volunteers knocked on doors in an environment better suited for storing whole beefs.

The Carly Melin and Shelley Robinson campaigns both shared details of door knocks in Hibbing, Chisholm and Floodwood. Melin held her first "meet and greet" event featuring Paul Metsa at Zimmy's Saturday night where a lively crowd gathered. Robinson is riding high after a big week of endorsements from local officials and Iron Range icon Veda Ponikvar. Melin also won some endorsements, most notably one from one of my favorite local pols Hibbing City Clerk Pat Garrity who was quoted, "Our local cities and municipalities are going to need a strong advocate and friend. I believe that friend is Carly Melin.”

Melin's campaign told me more endorsement news would be on the way this week. All the candidates screened before the Iron Range Labor Assembly on Wednesday but no endorsement was issued. There will be a candidate forum this upcoming Wednesday that I'll explain in a future post. Rumblings of a District 5B DFL endorsing convention for Saturday, Jan. 29 are growing louder, but I have yet to receive formal notice. There will be more on all of this later in the week.

Melin will hold a fundraiser Monday evening from 5-7 p.m. at the Radisson in Duluth hosted by Duluth City Councilor and active DFLer Jeff Anderson.

Jeff Kletscher will hold a spaghetti fundraiser Thursday, Jan. 27 from 5-7 p.m. at the Mainline Station in Floodwood.

Robinson is holding a meet and greet at Zimmy's in Hibbing on Thursday, Jan. 27 from 4-7 p.m.

Melin and Robinson were up in the Hibbing Daily Tribune Sunday edition with fairly large ads. Robinson's stressed leadership and experience, touting policy positions. Melin's stressed a campaign theme of "generations," emphasizing her "next generation" message and Iron Range roots. Robinson will be launching a radio ad campaign this week as well. And Melin has actually opened a downtown headquarters. Both campaigns are running fairly busy Facebook presences where you can see and hear these things (Robinson and Melin). It's hard to say who will win, but the campaign itself is proving to be a welcome form of economic development here in the first quarter.

In terms of raw campaign activity it's clear that Robinson and Melin are setting the pace, and could fairly be called the front runners. Kletscher, Ray Pierce Jr. and particularly John Spanish are less visible, but to be fair this special election is such a strange thing that traditional campaign activities are only one indicator of success. Kletscher's following in the southern portion of the district and Pierce's connections to the local labor, music and car racing communities provide bases that wouldn't necessarily show up on the radar.

I will continue to pass along news items from any campaign that sends them to me as time and space permit. On Monday, my guest commentaries for the candidates begin with Jeff Kletscher.

This is my weekly column which ran in the Saturday, Jan. 22, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. The column ran a day early because I was told that the large volume of letters to the editor regarding the House 5B special election pushed me off the Sunday page. That's great, because the Saturday paper is where all the action is anyway. Saturdays and print edition newspapers. The two go together like peanut butter and ... regular butter. Is it Feb. 15 yet?

We who sail the seas set the course
By Aaron J. Brown

Like many of you, I was just about spent on politics after the November election. This time I’ll quit for good, I said. I’ve said it before. Yet, once again, when the drums beat and the trumpets sound I am right back in the thick of it. We all have our political convictions. Even those with no such convictions remain completely convinced. (“Don’t vote; you’ll only encourage them.”)

It has taken a few mighty collisions between youthful idealism and the hard rocks of reality, but I have finally learned that elections do not solve problems. Not on their own, they don’t. Oh, elections have consequences, to be sure, but they often act more like weather than medicine. The actions of those who survive the storm, or use its mighty winds to sail, are far more important.

Here on the Iron Range the voters of House District 5B will have a unique opportunity to influence the weather in the upcoming special election, with a DFL primary on Feb. 1 and a general election on Feb. 15. As you might know, State Rep. Tony Sertich resigned more than a week ago to become Gov. Mark Dayton’s commissioner of the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation agency. Both Sertich’s transition into that job and the special election to fill his former 5B seat will influence this region’s future.

Nevertheless, these events provide no guarantee that anything specific will occur. Elections provide a temporary thrill for the most self-convinced, perhaps the loudest among our community. It’s a mandate, they scream. And they will lose their breath and hunker down on the deck of our ship at sea. It is raining. It is snowing. How do we stop that? Do we find a use for all this water or try to repel it? Probably a little bit of both. Political science is an arcane art of mathematical observation, nothing like walking and talking at the same time.

Indeed, the actions of everyday citizens, the readers, the voters, the people living and dying on the Iron Range, matter much as the person who wins this election. Our leaders, for better and worse, reflect our true nature as a people. What they do is often at least as important as how they vote. What they do is so often determined by what we do, what we build and defend in our own communities.

This is a special election, and it really is special. Open seats don’t appear very often on the Iron Range, where acquiring political seniority is a key strategy. Furthermore, this particular election features many good candidates, both in the Feb. 1 DFL primary and in the Feb. 15 general election, where Republican Paul Jacobson and IP candidate Cynthia Kafut Hagen await the DFL primary winner.

Among the DFLers, Shelley Robinson is an active, dedicated, compassionate member of the community. Carly Melin represents a new generation of Iron Range ideas and energy. Jeff Kletscher combines the experience of a small town mayor with that of a teacher and small business owner. Ray Pierce Jr. offers a voice to a lot of people outside politics, who know him as a millwright and country music personality. John Spanish, of course, is part of the long history of DFL politics on the Iron Range.

The differences among these seven candidates might be great on the issues, but they share the desire to represent our ship as it sails the choppy waters of the 21st century. The next representative may move the rudder, but let us not forget that big ships need big crews. We all have a role in the future of this region. We should welcome this exciting and mercifully short exercise in politics, for it is the people who sail the seas of democracy.

Aaron J. Brown is a writer and community college instructor from the Iron Range. Read more at his blog MinnesotaBrown.com or in his book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

This week on "Between You and Me," the 91.7 KAXE Saturday morning call-in and music program featuring the voices of northern Minnesota, the topic is "Brainerd." That's right, the central Minnesota town whose pronunciation accentuates the regional accent gets its own show. This was a special challenge for me, a writer and teacher from the Iron Range who has only been to Brainerd a couple of times. Rather than attempt to fake my way through, the way I usually handle these things, I used a life line.

My segment on the show this week will be an emergency phone call to Chuck Marohn, the planning adviser from Strong Towns who provides Republican commentary on the "Making Sausage" political segment on the KAXE morning show. He grew up in the Brainerd area and is now raising his family there. His relationship with the Brainerd Lakes region is very similar to the one I have with the Iron Range. I'm a big fan of his work and he's one of my best Facebook friends. You know that means good radio.

Saturday 10 to noon on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming online at www.KAXE.org.

Thirty-four below this morning as the sun peeked over the treetops, futilely hurling its hot solar rays at the ice box that is northern Minnesota. Henry's school bus sounded like it had the consumption. It would get to school but not without protracted effort and considerable noise. Temperatures ran even lower just a few miles north, as much as 42 below in Bigfork.

Carly Melin will host a candidate meet and greet from 5-7 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 22 at Zimmy's in Hibbing. The event will feature live music from Iron Range native and well known Minnesota folk rocker Paul Metsa. Melin, a Hibbing attorney in the state judiciary, is one of five DFLers seeking the House 5B seat vacated by Rep. Tony Sertich.

I'll continue sharing campaign news as I receive it, time and space permitting. Next week I'll be featuring guest commentaries from each of the candidates as we approach the Feb. 1 primary election. After the primary we shift to general election coverage with the IP and GOP candidates.

Shelley Robinson earned a notable endorsement in the House 5B special election Thursday. Former Chisholm newspaper publisher and longtime Iron Range leader Veda Ponikvar offered her support to Robinson. From the campaign release:

... Ponikvar reports that “for the past 20 years, Shelley Robinson has been a passionate advocate for the less fortunate among our community and the entire Iron Range. Upon being appointed executive director of the Range Center, Shelley’s dedicated work has made the center known throughout the nation for its success and organization.  Shelley has devoted her life to serving those in need and has won the hearts and minds of the children and adults of the Iron Range in the process.  As a health and human services expert, she will without a doubt continue fighting for the necessary funding of health programs for our senior citizens and the disabled down in St. Paul.”

On Tuesday Chisholm Mayor Mike Jugovich and Buhl Mayor Craig Pulford endorsed Robinson.

I almost forgot to mention it, but if you have some free time this afternoon and are near Virginia, Minnesota, I will be speaking at a St. Michael's Foundation free seminar from 2-3 p.m. I will highlight some of the themes from my book "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range" including some new material and updates. The talk has continued to evolve from when the book came out. It's like jazz. Smooth Iron Range history and socioeconomic jazz, with jokes. There will be a brief discussion afterward. A copy of "Overburden" will be given away as a door prize.

The event is at the St. Michael's Health and Rehabilitation facility at 1201 8th St. S. Though that may sound like a nursing home, and it very much is, these events are open to the public and draw a wide range of audience members. I have been told this.

I'll also be speaking to the Mesabi Unitarian Universalist congregation this Sunday morning at 10 a.m., also in Virginia. Same kind of deal, but there will be a more involved discussion afterward and probably some cold cuts. I try to make these things fun and thoughtful, and a good audience makes them even better. Join us, would you?

Open legislative seats on northern Minnesota's Iron Range always attract drama, and not the sort of snappy, well-timed dialogue like you see in "The West Wing." No, this drama is sometimes brutal, awkward, but extraordinarily rich, unflinchingly real, spanning generations like a great bridge. Today it begins anew.

Seven candidates have filed for the special election to replace Rep. Tony Sertich (DFL-Chisholm) who resigned Jan. 13 to become Commissioner of the IRRRB. I've been informed that all the R's are back in the agency's name and I welcome them. House 5B is one of the legendary Iron Range seats, firmly held by Democratic-Farmer-Laborites since the 1950s. And though political winds swirl madly these days, with northern Minnesota leaning more Republican in recent years, this remains a very likely DFL hold. Nevertheless, this year's race has the ring of great literature so I rule out nothing, nothing in my analysis.

Five DFLers have filed for the Feb. 1 primary election: Floodwood mayor Jeff Kletscher, Hibbing attorney Carly Melin, Hibbing laborer and country music personality Ray Pierce Jr., Hibbing nonprofit executive Shelley Robinson, and former State Rep. and frequent candidate John Spanish, also of Hibbing. The winning Democrat will face Republican Paul Jacobson, a juvenile justice worker with divinity training, and Hibbing housing advocate Cynthia Kafut Hagen, who filed with the Independence Party after initially announcing a DFL run. We'll talk about Jacobson and Kafut Hagen another day, as they have the luxury of two extra weeks before their names hit the ballots in the Feb. 15 general election.

For the next two weeks, however, bundled DFL candidates and only the most loyal of volunteers will brave the cold streets of Hibbing and Chisholm, attack the long icy highways like St. Louis County 7 and 33, perhaps choked with snow from the narrowly averted plow strike. These candidates range in age from 25 to 88, with ideology from what might be considered somewhat conservative to what the kids these days call progressive. Some of them will use sophisticated voter persuasion techniques and technology while others may only be reached on a phone that almost certainly requires a spiral cord. Some votes will be won and lost over events that occurred before television broadcasts reached this place. Other votes will be decided on the way to the polls. This is Iron Range politics.

I promised all the candidates as close to equal access as I can offer on this, a sole proprietorship blog run by a flawed, mortal vessel. If you're wondering my qualifications in this endeavor I offer these meager credentials. By 21st century standards, it's enough. After this tome is finished you will begin seeing shorter posts highlighting activities and events for individual candidates as information is provided to me in coming weeks. If you don't like politics, I'm sorry. I'll try to throw some other material in there, too.

Shelley Robinson
Robinson held a "union members" event at her home yesterday. Her campaign released this description:

... As the executive director of the Range Center in Chisholm, Shelley employs over 140 union steelworkers in service of our community’s developmentally disabled. She was formerly a classroom teacher in Hibbing and Chisholm. Currently, she is an adjunct instructor for Bemidji State University where she belongs to the IFO (Inter Faculty Organization) union.

Shelley has also served as the chair of the area’s United Way and currently sits on its board. In 2008, during the economic recession, Shelley and the United Way partnered to create a fund with over $60,000 to help unemployed miners.

Today, at the Robinson household, union workers in all different professions came to express their support for Shelley’s candidacy. Nurses, teachers, firefighters, steelworkers, and miners came to meet with Shelley, share their work experiences, and give advice about how Shelley can best serve them in the State House of Representatives. The Robinson campaign is honored and excited to be backed by such hardworking, knowledgeable people.

Naturally, this does not constitute a union endorsement, but rather a show of support by several different union members. The Iron Range Labor Assembly (AFL-CIO) is going to be screening candidates on Wednesday and it remains to be seen who will get their nod, if anyone. Robinson's chamber of commerce connections may hurt her there. Robinson will also face criticism from pro-choice voters for her pro-life views, which is more damaging in the primary than in the general. To her great advantage, however, are her years of community service and local civic board membership.

Today, Robinson's campaign announced two major endorsements, Chisholm Mayor Mike Jugovich and Buhl Mayor Craig Pulford. The two of them will appear with Robinson on the steps of Chisholm City Hall Wednesday, Feb. 19 at noon. Jugovich was at one time considered a potential candidate for this seat and is well known in DFL circles. His support is important as for the first time in a generation there are no Chisholm candidates for this seat. But he's not the only Chisholm voice in the mix, as you'll see in a minute.


Carly Melin
Minnesota Public Radio describes Melin as running the most visible campaign so far, and her quick acceptance by many experienced members of the Range political structure is notable. Her campaign co-chairs are former Sen. Jerry Janezich and his wife Patty, a well-known Chisholm family and longtime political activists. They've brought along others, and Friday the Melin campaign announced the endorsement of longtime Iron Range lawmaker Joe Begich, who currently serves on the IRRRB as a citizen board member. Her campaign release:

Begich said “This area has a rich history of strong union and labor roots. The Labor Movement and Unions were born here and over the years I have fought hard for those blue collar working families that created America’s middle class.”

Begich went on to say “Many of my friends and colleagues have and will continue to protect our union brothers and sisters in the Minnesota legislature. Working people are the backbone of a stable economy and I have spent my entire career as a public servant fighting for them. With Tony Sertich’s move to the IRRRB we have some big shoes to fill in House District 5B and the Minnesota legislature. I believe that Carly Melin is the one to fill those shoes. It is time to pass the torch to a new generation and she will carry it well. Carly Melin represents the future of the Iron Range and the ideals and values I cherish. I am glad that she decided to run.”

Melin stated “I am honored and humbled to have Representative Begich’s support. He has done so much over his career in public service for working people and families and the Iron Range. I come from one of those families and I won’t ever forget where I came from.”

Hibbing City Clerk Pat Garrity, a respected and long-serving city official, also offered his endorsement and services to the campaign, according to Melin.

Melin is also the youngest candidate in this mix. At 25, she's well below the Iron Range's silver-gray median age. She is, however, a year older than Sertich was when he was first elected. She'll be battling to win over those who might not know her well yet, particularly the older voters likely to sway this election. Efforts to win liberal and labor votes will be key to her success.

Jeff Kletscher, the mayor of Floodwood, has been relatively quiet since his filing and announcement last Friday. One imagines that his strength will be outside the cities of Hibbing and Chisholm, though his ability to talk about local property taxes and how city services are affected by local government aid cuts will give him a message to carry to the towns.

I spoke with Ray Pierce Jr. tonight and he'll be putting out a statement and campaign materials soon. Pierce ran in 2000 as a member of the Independence Party and, were in not for an unfortunate incident in which he was falsely attached to a bar brawl, he might have done considerably better than the low 20s percentage he received then. He's a union laborer and a well regarded local citizen. He'll be an interesting wild card in this primary, one to watch.

And we conclude with John Spanish. Either you know who John Spanish is or you don't, but if you don't you are missing the totality of what it means to be in Iron Range politics.

One time when I was in Rotary I was ringing bells for the Salvation Army Christmas kettle drive and had the opportunity to spend about half an hour chatting with Mr. Spanish. He told me of his time in the legislature, his long hours walking to and from the capitol because he did not drive when in St. Paul, being stopped by security people who would not believe he was a legislator. Indeed he was. He served four non-consecutive terms and is the only political figure I know of who's run for office in seven different decades. He lost to Lona Minne in the 1978 DFL primary, in part because of ridicule he received for introducing a bill creating a hunting season for the blind. He claimed to me that this was a planned set-up, and still regrets agreeing to carry the bill. He's failed to garner more than 5 percent in recent primaries but has not given up on his efforts to return to St. Paul.

Fittingly, in an election where it is a reasonable belief that the Range could elect only its second female legislator in history, the DFL primary will include an octogenarian who lost to the first female legislator in the late 1970s before one of the current female candidates was even born.

Full circle. I love the Iron Range.

More to come. Much more. To support this coverage, please consider buying "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range." If you are a candidate or campaign, e-mail me any press releases or news using the "contact" tab above. I will share future material without comment.

The field is set. Five DFLers including Shelley Robinson, Carly Melin, Jeff Kletscher, Ray Pierce Jr., and the John Spanish will compete in a Feb. 1 primary election for State House District 5B. Republican Paul Jacobson and Independence Party candidate Cynthia Kafut Hagen will be waiting in the Feb. 15 general election for the DFL nominee. I'll have more on this later tonight.

Today filings close on the Minnesota House of Representatives District 5B special election to replace former Rep. Tony Sertich (DFL-Chisholm) who is now Commissioner of Iron Range Resources. DFLers Jeff Kletscher, Carly Melin and Shelley Robinson are already in, along with Republican Paul Jacobson. I have heard from one candidate, DFLer Cynthia Kafut Hagen, who plans to file this morning. I will write more on her later today. Other candidates may file, but I am as of now unaware of others planning to run.

You can monitor the filings at the Secretary of State website, which is what I'll be doing throughout the day. Tonight I will post a wrap analyzing the candidates who filed and preview the Feb. 1 DFL primary and the Feb. 15 general election. At least two candidates have endorsements and events already happening.

With such a fascinating (and short!) campaign ahead, it's my mission to cover this election in my backyard as well or better than any of the mainstream media outlets. I may be blogging on my own but I will depend very much on you, the readers, to ask questions and share information. This will be an experiment in new media, community journalism in the Facebook era, and I hope an historic turning point for Iron Range politics, regardless of who wins. Thanks for reading.

Nothing says, "hello, this is what the apocalypse would look like," like a snowplow driver strike in St. Louis County in January. It starts Wednesday, unless cooler (get it) heads prevail. Ideally, the union and management sweep aside their differences, piling up grievances out of the way or at least down the middle of the street in something called a wind row.

If you're a fan of politics or history you might recall the legendary quote from President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address delivered 50 years ago today. The speech warned of the rise of a "military industrial complex" that would grow to drain our federal budget by entangling us in a series of nonstop overseas entanglements. Eisenhower's words have only proven more prophetic in recent years, but one little detail caught my eye recently.

The KAXE Morning Show had a great segment last week featured on their blog, including the archived interview. One of Eisenhower's top speechwriters was Malcolm Moos, who would go on to be President of the University of Minnesota. It was Moos who wrote that speech for Eisenhower. His final draft was donated to the Eisenhower Library in Kansas.

After Moos' death, his family found several earlier drafts of the speech in their father's boat house at his cabin outside Hackensack, Minnesota. He wrote key portions of the speech here in Minnesota. The drafts, containing notes from Eisenhower and others in the administration, show the thinking that lead to the famous line, which Eisenhower fought to keep.

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A shorter version of this piece aired on the Saturday, Jan. 15 edition of "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE. 

The good news, the bad news
By Aaron J. Brown

It is distinctly American, perhaps distinctly human to break news into the categories of good and bad. Some news hails as definitively good, such as the victory of your local whateverball club or getting a raise. Other news remains most assuredly bad, including death, dismemberment and unplanned car repairs. Anything else, however (ie: most news), is usually presented this way: “Well, the good news is ‘x,’ but the bad news is ‘y,’” as though we can’t handle the nuances of reality.

Of course, that’s true. We can’t handle nuance. Or reality for that matter. Human nature tells us that these pants look OK on us, even after eating all that food over the course of several years. And so we tell the same lie to Fatty McFat over there, too. “You carry it well, Bob. You don’t look a pound over 195.”

There’s a whole host of “good news/bad news” jokes floating around on your finer after-dinner speech preparation websites. The best site I found is called TV Tropes, which covers all manner of joke and writing constructs. Many of the good news/bad news jokes described are based on the idea of a doctor delivering news to a patient. Some of these jokes are so old that they transcend proper attribution. For instance:

Doctor: I have some good news and I have some bad news.

Patient:  What's the good news?

Doctor:  The good news is that the tests you took showed that you have 24 hours to live.

Patient: That's the good news?  What's the bad news?

Doctor: The bad news is that I forgot to call you yesterday!

Now, as a joke, this is OK. I would have worked harder to find its origin had I not run across several dozen Sunday sermons by pastors who also stole the joke without attribution. Really, it’s the idea of the joke that matters more than its humor. “I just got you to think while politely laughing at my mediocre joke.” That’s the wheelhouse of a pastor, and also a newspaper columnist.

Actually, TV Tropes section on this breaks it down even further. There’s “Not so good news after all,” “That was the good news,” “Bad news, irrelevant news,” “There is no good news,” “Reading between the good news” (in which the doctor’s line becomes “The good news is they’re naming a disease after you!”) and “Both news are the same.”

The site warns that if the situation in the joke gets worse, “it quickly becomes “Bad News, Worse News,” an entirely different trope. You can pull back from that brink, however, if you end with “So what’s the bad news?”

We live in grey times. Not dark. Not bright. Grey.

There is good news, like astounding technological progress and medical innovation. And there is bad news, like violence, continuing wars and burgeoning public and private debt. Our polarized politics and the vitriol of extremists make it hard to explain a complicated reality with an unclear path forward. In truth, what we might need are more good news, bad news jokes.

DOCTOR: Well, I’ve got good news and bad news.

PATIENT: What’s the good news?

DOCTOR: The good news is that you are at a healthy weight for your age.

PATIENT: That’s great! What’s the bad news?

DOCTOR: The bad news is that I was reading a veterinary manual about horses.

PATIENT: Neigh, that is bad news.

Well, it’s a work in progress. I’ll have plenty of time to get this right when the government falls … to the sounds of laughter, that is.

Aaron J. Brown is an Iron Range writer and community college instructor. Read more at his blog MinnesotaBrown.com or in his book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

Jeff Kletscher, entering his third fifth term mayor of Floodwood and current president of the League of Minnesota Small Cities, has joined the DFL primary fray in the House 5B special election.

Kletscher has been in Floodwood city government for more than 18 years and works as a real estate broker after a career as a math and computer teacher. He joins a growing field of DFL candidates for the seat vacated by former State Rep. and current Iron Range Resources commissioner Tony Sertich.

Kletscher's statement from an e-mail to me:

I have been active in local government for over 18 years, 10 years on the Floodwood City Council and the past 8+ as Floodwood Mayor; The opportunity has now presented itself to represent the citizens of District 5B at the State Capital. I have worked and lobbied hard for my city at the State Capitol during those 18 years. Over the past several years I have also worked hard to represent the states small cities at the State Capitol. In June of 2010, I was elected the president of the Minnesota Association of Small Cities, a voluntary municipal membership organization that representsover 300 communities under the population of 5000. 

I've described District 5B as the Iron Range towns of Hibbing and Chisholm and a great number of big land/small population townships between the Range and Duluth. Most of the votes are in Hibbing and Chisholm, so those rural townships often feel left out of the political equation. Floodwood, which is small but also represents the district's third largest city, is also situated in this low-lying southern portion of the district. Kletscher's entrance in the race, with little fanfare but an interesting resume, adds additional drama to what was already a fascinating DFL primary.

Kletscher joins Shelley Robinson, Carly Melin and Cynthia Kafut Hagen, who told me today she will file Tuesday, in the Feb. 1 DFL primary. The winner will likely face Republican Paul Jacobson in the Feb. 15 general election. Filling will remain open Tuesday until 5 p.m., so additional candidates may enter the race.

With DFLers Shelley Robinson and Carly Melin already in the race for the House District 5B Special Election, we now have a clearer picture who the primary winner will face in the general election. Republican Paul Jacobson filed today, resurrecting his unsuccessful campaign from last fall when he lost to former State. Rep. Tony Sertich, now the Iron Range Resources Commissioner. Jacobson's statement:

Paul Jacobson of Hibbing announced Friday morning will run for the seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives vacated by Tony Sertich. Mr. Jacobson commented, “Mr. Sertich has represented the district for 10 years, and I look forward to being a new voice for the people of the Iron Range, and the values we hold dear.”

Paul has been raised on the Iron Range and holds a love for its people, community and way of life. He has vowed to fight for jobs in Northern Minnesota, bring about a balanced budget in St Paul, and use common sense to remove the obstacles for job growth and business expansion in Minnesota. According to Jacobson, “I am confident Representative Sertich will be an asset to the IRRB, and I look forward to working with him as we focus on improving our business environment and looking out for the range.

Mr. Jacobson graduated North Central Bible College in 1996 with a BS in Youth Ministry and Minister’s license. He also graduated the University of Phoenix in 2009, finishing a Masters in Business Administration. He now is working for KidsPeace Mesabi Academy as a counselor. He has been married to his wife Lisa for 15 years and they are raising 3 children, Solomon (10), Esther (8) and Ezekiel (6). Paul Jacobson is the “sensible choice for the common voice.”

Paul was born in New Ulm, Minnesota, moving to Albert Lea when entering kindergarten. His father Steve moved his family to Hibbing in 1981 when the company he worked for purchased a clothing store in downtown Hibbing and opened Leuthold Jacobson. Steve eventually purchased that business. Paul attended St. Leo’s Catholic grade school through sixth grade, along with his two sisters and one brother, and graduated from Hibbing High School in 1991.

Paul’s first job was for his father when he was 15 years old and he has worked ever since. He attended college and North Central Bible College (now North Central University) in Minneapolis, graduating in 1996 and earned a minister’s license that same year. Paul worked at North Central Bible College in the Security Department and became the Director of Security for a number of years.

Eventually, Paul and his wife moved back to Hibbing in October of 1999, started a new job at Mesabi Academy and began a family. Within two years, he became a supervisor at Mesabi Academy and continued in that position for over five years. Paul still works at KidsPeace Mesabi Academy as a counselor for the past three years.

Though other candidates could file Iron Range Republicans tend to unify before primaries. I would be surprised if anyone other than Jacobson files on that side of the ballot. Jacobson ran an enthusiastic campaign and Range GOPers are still euphoric over the stunning victory of Chip Cravaack over Jim Oberstar in the MN8 Congressional race. Thus, no DFLer should take Jacobson for granted in this turbulent special election field, even if 5B is solidly DFL.

Filing remains open until Tuesday at 5 p.m. The primary election will be Feb. 1 and the general election will be Feb. 15.